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From 12 April to 6 June 2012, CIFAL Shanghai hosted its training course on Information Technology Application for Developing Countries. The 56-day training course brought together 37 participants from 21 countries, covering Asia, Africa, Europe and Caribbean regions to explore all aspects of Information Technology Application, and accompanied by various field surveys and experiments in Changshu, Wuxi, Hangzhou and Shanghai.

Participants hailed from Governments, Academia, media and enterprises; and were from countries as varied as Uganda, Pakistan, Viet Nam, Zimbabwe and Albania.

The training opened with a special course on the Development and Future of Shanghai Urban Informatization. With the lecture of city’s panorama technology, participants had the chance to visit Pudong Software Park and Shanghai Integrateo Circuit Museum, which help them better understand the development and achievement of Chinas’ software industry. Pudong Software Park includes three various functional areas and is the national base of software industry as well as software export.

On April 29th, participants were moved to Changshu, where participants paid a visit to Lemote Technology Corporation Limited, from which they were given lecture on Education Information System Solutions Based on Lemote CPU. Then participants departed for Wuxi and were arranged to practice for 8 days in K-PARK on the theme of “Software Develpoment”. K-PARK is a hi-tech industrial incubator specialized in software and service outsourcing, television animation, micro-nano sensor, creative design, network economy, high-end R & D and educational training.

After a short break to A. P. Plaza, participants returned to Shanghai and had site visits to some most advanced Information Technology companies including CISCO China and Kingsoft Corporation. Training courses on Application of Mobile Internet Technology, Finance Informatization, Cloud Computing and E-Commerce, etc. were offered there.

Participants also had various lectures from a variety of professionals and specialists, such as China issue specialist Dr. Jean Marie CISHAHAYO, director of CISCO China Mr. Cao Yousheng, general manager of ZENITEK Group Mr. HAN Zhiyi, etc. All instructors are familiar with the development of IT in China, some even took part in the research and experiments of several large-scale IT projects in China.

Finally, participants were required to take an examination and evaluation form. From the feedback of evaluation forms, participants were satisfied with both the quality of the courses and the arrangement of the whole training. Up to 55% participants agreed that the training was very useful to their future. More than 60% of the participants believed that the training will be very helpful to the cooperation between China and their respective countries.

Participants were glad to have a chance to gather a comprehensive view of the application and development of Information Technology in China and realize the importance of informatization to the further development of a country.

Training course on IT application for developing countries is part of a series of China’s foreign aid projects held by CIFAL Shanghai in 2012, financed by the Ministry of Commerce of China and in cooperation with the Minitrsy of Foreign Affairs of the China. The next training course on Information Security Technology for Developing Countries will be held on 19 September 2012.

For more information on CIFAL Shanghai's upcoming programmes and how to participate see the online UNITAR Training Catalogue at: www.unitar.org/event and look for CIFAL Shanghai.